Hi Art, I've had a lot of luck with calling an inexperienced seller after the auction closes but before payment is sent (or sometimes before the auction closes) and providing explicit instructions (often walking them through it on the phone), assuring them this is a tricky item and lots of perfectly good packing jobs end up destroying them. So far every seller to a person has been thankful for the help and advice. You can often tell how receptive they'd be by the tone of their email contact. Best, Robert ----- Original Message ----- From: <Aph4990 at aol.com> > I mentioned to him that the mechanism would have to be removed from the > case to safely send the machine--and he stated that he had great > trepidation > over removing the mechanism from the case. I truly think he would have > been > way over his head if he had to figure out how to safely send such an > important machine and horn to a buyer. > I actually wanted to bid on that machine--BUT I myself had great > trepidation > in trusting the guy to send it properly. > Oh well--if he sent it, it probably would have come broken anyway! Great > rationalization, huh? > ---Art Heller